When it comes to illegal immigration, President Obama's policy is clear: If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all.
Rather than having a meaningful national discussion about how over-immigration costs American workers jobs, crowds schools, and strains local and state budgets, the White House offers nebulous, unsupported banalities like "we are a nation of immigrants" or "immigration is the lifeblood of our economy."
Given Obama's illegal immigration avoidance policy, his failure to so much as hint that aliens may have played a role in the southern Arizona wildfires comes as no surprise. Mexican cartels have carved out the territory surrounding the raging Horseshoe 2 Fire northeast of Douglas and the Murphy Complex Fire northwest of Nogales as human and drug trafficking corridors.
The fires' causes are officially under investigation, although little progress has been made. They may have been started by lightning although no strikes have been reported. Careless campers may be at fault - but the Coronado National Forest had been closed since June 9, three days before the fires started.
The ecological damage caused by the fires is immeasurable. To date, the Horseshoe 2 Fire has burned 128,652 acres in the Chiricahua Mountains including three homes and six buildings. The Murphy Complex Fire has destroyed 68,033 acres including the historic Atascosa Lookout. Both rank among the top 10 largest wildfires in Arizona in more than two decades. An additional 1,560 acres within Mexico have been lost.
Clues point to illegal alien participation - either accidentally or in an effort to distract pursuing border patrol agents - yet no one wants to include that among the possibilities. Investigators, who do not focus on the immigration status of those who start fires, will only acknowledge that humans are the probable cause.
Arizona Daily Star reporter Brady McCombs tried to learn more. McCombs approached a Northern Arizona University Forestry School fire ecologist to ask if any research had been or would be done to discover what the role of illegal aliens might have been. The answer was "no."
And at a meeting of concerned citizens earlier this week in Sierra Vista, Kym Hall, Coronado National Memorial superintendent, said in response to the same question about possible illegal immigrant involvement that it would be "difficult" to answer.
In view of the wall of silence surrounding the blazes, credit must be given to Sen. John McCain who thinks the fires were set by aliens to divert law enforcement, to send signals to other smugglers or simply to stay warm. McCain, as reported by CNN, said "We are concerned about, particularly, areas down on the border where there is substantial evidence that some of these fires are caused by people who have crossed our border illegally. The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border."
Therein lies the rub. President Obama has repeatedly insisted that the border is secure and that, accordingly, the nation can get about the business of granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. In May, speaking from El Paso, Obama boldly declared the border more secure than ever.
If an in-depth federal investigation confirmed illegal alien involvement, that would be counter-productive to Obama's secure border agenda. That's why we're unlikely to ever know much more about the fires than we do today.
Joe Guzzardi is a syndicated columnist and a Senior Writing Fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS). He can be reached at JoeGuzzardi@CAPSweb.org.
Arizona Willie posted at 7:38 am on Thu, Jun 23, 2011.
An illegal immigrant can be captured on tape committing a crime and confess to having done it ... but the media will NEVER call him an illegal immigrant. If someone even MENTIONS that he is hispanic and speaks no English they are smeared as RASCIST.
Woe woe unto him ( politician or public official ) who speaks ill of illegal immigrants for he shall run the gauntlet of media beating him about the head and shoulders with accusations of being rascist and exceeding his authority if he is enforcing laws against illegal immigrants.
They are not concerned with whatever crime the illegal invader committed -- but they consider speaking against illegals to be a crime.
They claim emigrating legally is too hard and takes too long.
But, somehow, thousands of people do it every year. They pay their fees and fill out the forms and wait their turn.
But the media sanctifies those who jump the line and invade our country.
Is it hard? Does it take too long? Is that a legitimate excuse for invading?
If that justifies illegal invasion it also justifies me robbing a bank because I want to be rich and it takes too long and is too hard to become rich by working.
Something tells me that excuse won't work for me.
Accuracy posted at 11:46 am on Thu, Jun 23, 2011.
" The Arizona fires and the conspiracy of silence"
Joe Guzzardi wrote: "In view of the wall of silence surrounding the blazes, credit must be given to Sen. John McCain who thinks the fires were set by aliens to divert law enforcement, to send signals to other smugglers or simply to stay warm. McCain, as reported by CNN, said "We are concerned about, particularly, areas down on the border where there is substantial evidence that some of these fires are caused by people who have crossed our border illegally. The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border.""
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Sen. John McCain claims that immigrants and drug smugglers likely started some of the wildfires in Arizona. Especially concerning the Monument Fire that started near the Mexican border area; Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said, "It wasn't the rabbits or the rattle snakes that started this fire, it was human beings, and the only human beings believed to be occupying were smugglers."
It's easy to dismiss individual programs that benefit non-citizens (illegal aliens) until you put together the $338.3 billion a year total that illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers. Billions spent each year on: welfare to illegal aliens, food assistance programs such as food stamps and free school lunches for illegal aliens, medicaid for illegal aliens, school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of 'English', incarcerate illegal aliens, welfare and social services for illegal aliens, 30% percent of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens, and illegal aliens sent home to their countries of origin.
AZ_Resident posted at 11:43 pm on Sun, Jun 26, 2011.
It's soon time to vote for those that will look out for us - and secure our borders for the real people of America. Obamas' days are numbered..[beam]
Masterrogue666 posted at 7:15 am on Mon, Jun 27, 2011.
To Joe Guzzardi: A well written article. I'm actually surprised it's in the EVT! Obama constantly drones how safe the border is yet there are signs near the border stating how DANGEROUS it would be to proceed into particular areas. IF THAT'S SAFE, then I'd hate to see Obama's definition of DANGEROUS!
Like you said, it could have been an accident, or design. EITHER WAY, it's another cost created by INVADING FOREIGN NATIONALS that the US TAXPAYER must absorb.